


Sun Behind the Clouds

by fiftyzillion



Category: Greek and Roman Mythology
Genre: M/M, Modern, Reincarnation, Retelling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-25
Updated: 2013-12-25
Packaged: 2018-01-06 02:37:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1101375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiftyzillion/pseuds/fiftyzillion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a far-off future, two lovers meet again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sun Behind the Clouds

**Author's Note:**

  * For [haipollai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/haipollai/gifts).



The weather was growing cold. A wind had struck up from the west and now it howled down the narrow streets of downtown City, blasting pedestrians in the face and chilling every bared skin surface within moments. Hyacinthe pulled the collar of his jacket tighter around his neck. He should’ve brought a scarf—the weather had seemed nice enough when he left the warehouse, but he should’ve known better. Nothing stayed the same in the City—certainly not the capricious weather.

He reached the end of the alley and squinted up at the sign high above. The guy that had pointed him in this direction had told him that his destination wouldn’t be more than two streets down. Two streets down, however, had put him in between two dumpsters overfilling with trash. Two _blocks_ down had put him here, where buildings loomed like gargoyles and winds ripped through the funnel-like alleys.

He dug the piece of paper out of his pocket—it still said two streets down. He’d have to turn back—or find someone else to ask. If he _could_ find someone else to—

“Fuck!”

The guy leaning against the wall behind him, blocking his path, smiled—broadly. “Did I scare you?”

For a moment, Hyacinthe couldn’t tear his eyes off the seriously white, seriously _pointy_ teeth of the guy. “Yeah—yeah, I’m supposed to deliver this—do you know of. . .” He consulted the packing label. “ _Moment of Bliss_? It’s a coffee shop, I think.”

“I know of it.” The guy was still grinning—and it was starting to freak Hyacinthe out. “What will you give me if I get you there?”

A chill that had nothing to do with the wind ran down Hyacinthe’s back. “Hey, man, if you don’t have the time to show me, that’s fine. I can get there by myself.” He began to edge around the guy, hoping that he wouldn’t do anything—pulling out a gun didn’t seem that far off from what this guy would be capable of. “I’ll just go my merry way and you can continue...doing...what you…do...” He froze beneath the hand settled suddenly on his shoulder.

“Oh, don’t be in such a hurry! I’m not going to hurt you.”

Hyacinthe sincerely doubted that. He also sincerely doubted that it would help to tear loose and run. _Something_ told him that this guy would…follow.

He tried an awkward smile. “Um, I really need to get going. I’m supposed to deliver this before five.”

“Then you had better get going.” The guy somehow managed to wrap an arm around Hyacinthe’s waist and turn him around, sending them down an alley that Hyacinthe hadn’t even noticed. “I won’t ask for something difficult, I promise.”

Hyacinthe would, in all honesty, prefer if the guy didn’t ask him for _anything_. He forced a stumble, trying to get out of the guy’s reach. The arm, however, didn’t budge—if he didn’t know better, he’d swear the arm was glued to his waist.

The guy neatly guided him around a corner and onto a broader street that Hyacinthe quite frankly hadn’t known was there. From the crowd on the sidewalks, plenty of other people knew however, and the arm around his waist had to let go of him. Driven by whatever self-preservation he possessed, Hyacinthe threw himself to the side, jumped a Rottweiler and crossed the street to the serenade of a choir of angry drivers. Safe on the other side of the street and staring the guy in the face across the busy traffic (the guy was _smiling_ what the actual fuck), Hyacinthe realized that above the guy’s head hung a large sign that said _Moment of Bliss_.

 “…fuck my life.” He stared down at the package miraculously still in his hands, weighed the penalty fees for not delivering against his admittedly meager bank account, and then crossed the street again.

“You should look before crossing the street,” the guy tutted as soon as Hyacinthe was within hearing distance. “It’s dangerous to just jump into it like that, even if I’m quite impressed by your ability to dodge. That taxi was a hair’s width away from running you over.”

Hyacinthe paid him no heed, keeping as many people between him and the guy as he made for the coffee store. The guy inexplicably didn’t move, seemingly content to watch him, and Hyacinthe slipped through the door with a sigh of relief. He was totally calling a taxi to get back to the office. _Totally_.

Checking over his shoulder to make sure the guy didn’t follow him inside, Hyacinthe didn’t notice the girl in the corner at first. She’d been singing when he first entered (something about . . . astronomy? Music these days was seriously weird), but when he stepped into her sight, she trailed off, eyes wide. Hyancinthe felt a flush creeping up his neck – the reaction wasn’t unfamiliar, but it never ceased to make him want to hide under a table. He scurried past her as fast as he could, heading for the counter.

The barista on duty was an unusually tall woman with a multitude of braids and a build that said she could easily throw you halfway down the street—coupled with the dress embellished with metal and the high heels, it was a decidedly odd look. Not to mention as far from regulation as you could come. Hyacinthe looked suspiciously at the cakes in the display window; he couldn’t see anything sparkling.

“Oh, don’t be a pussycat. I have an apron.” As if wanting to make a point, the woman was tying on said apron when he looked up. “So, what’s your poison— _Hyacinthe_?”

Hyacinthe blinked at the expression on the barista’s face. “Do I know you?”

The apron went off again and the barista stalked off through the employee door. “Hey! Supposedly all-knowing queen of heaven! Come look who stepped in—a bit of warning would’ve been nice!”

This was place was _insane_ —or scratch that, considering the guy somewhere outside, _the entire suburb_ was insane. For a moment, Hyacinthe considered simply dumping the package on the counter and taking off, then the most voluptuous woman he’d seen outside a porno stormed out of yet _another_ door and grabbed him by the chin with sharp, strong fingers.

“Hyacinthe!” she hissed. “This—“ She caught something through the window over his shoulder. “Hey! Outside—is that?”

The barista took a look, then swore in some language that Hyacinthe felt like he should know. “I’ll take care of it.” She grabbed the formerly singing and now staring girl by the arm. “You’re coming with me—you should know what’s at stake.”

Then the two of them were out the door. The quite frankly scary woman held his chin in a vice turning his head back and forth. “Well, at least you’ve kept your looks,” she said clinically. “Quite nicely, really. You don’t have a clue about anything, however, do you? Should be happy that the lout I’m married to didn’t find you before this—you’d be bedded before you could say ‘what’.”

Something unfamiliar—and yet not—rose inside him then. “I would not!” he snarled and stepped away. “I wouldn’t betray—“ The words melted away, however, as his mind caught up and whatever had prompted him to say that disappeared.

“At least you’re loyal,” the woman noted. “Well, then, you may call me June. I’m the owner of Bliss.” She nodded sharply towards a corner table. “Now, sit down and tell me why you’re here.”

That sparked the part of him that still was at work and he held out the package automatically. June’s eyebrows rose, then a slow smile spread on her face. “How amusing. I wouldn’t have thought those three biddies would get themselves involved.”

Hyacinthe didn’t want to know what she meant. “Sign, please.”

June took both package and sign-off pad. “Sit down. I’ll make sure your report goes where it should.”

Then, without knowing exactly how it happened, Hyacinthe suddenly sat in the previously mentioned corner table and sipped on a vanilla caffè lattè—which he didn’t even like that much. He stirred the spoon—then dropped it and stood.

“What’s going on?” he demanded, stomping over to the counter. There was yet another woman there now—a girl looking as if she’d come straight from someone’s hunting grounds.

She looked at him. “Sit.”

Hyacinthe meekly did as she said—those eyes had been _scary_. If he didn’t know better, he’d say she hated him and he had never seen her before in his life.

“Tell me,” the girl said, “why are you here? Haven’t you caused enough problems as is?”

“What?” Hyacinthe stared at her. “I—I don’t fucking know _any_ of you! How can I have caused you problems?”

“You’re _Hyacinthe_!” the girl hissed. “You were born to be troublesome—if not for you, my brother would’ve—nothing would’ve turned out this way.”

“I don’t even know who your brother is!”

“Then why come in with Zeph? You have to have come in to shove it in his face—what, did you expect him to be here? Your intelligence sucks in that case, he’s not here.”

The front door bell rang. “He will be soon.” It was the braided woman again. “We couldn’t get a hold of Zeph—slippery guy. I almost caught him on top of the high rises, but I think he threw himself downtown again.”

“Brother is coming?” the girl demanded.

“Yes. We should get _him_ out of here until we know what Zeph’s up to.”

Hyacinthe didn’t particularly like being referred to as _he_. “I would’ve been gone long ago if I had my say, you know.”

The girl gave him a look. “Shush.”

And, really, that was quite enough. When the braided woman and the girl got deeper into their argument, Hyacinthe quietly slid out of his chair and made for the second door at the other end of the shop. With the door safely closed behind him, he let out a sigh and ducked into the nearest alley after taking a quick look around for this Zeph guy.

“I really need to quit this work,” he mumbled to himself. “People are such _weirdoes_ these days.”

Someone laughed them, a deep melodious laugh that made Hyacinthe’s knees go slightly weak. “Oh, it can’t be that bad, surely.”

Somehow, for _some_ reason, Hyacinthe couldn’t bring himself to turn around and look at this person. There was something, something familiar, _something_ —his heart pounded, it was hard to breathe. If he turned around—everything would change.

“It’s been a strange morning,” he said weakly.

“I can relate,” the man said. “I just got a . . . call from a person I don’t get on with particularly well, saying that I should come downtown. Stranger things have happened, but—it concerned someone I once cared for . . . very much so.”

“And you came?”

“There’s . . . some things you can’t pass up on, no matter from whom you get the information.” The man came closer; his feet scraping weirdly against the ground, as if he was trying to make sure that Hyacinthe heard him. “It was repayment, he said, for . . . things.”

All of the sudden, a face flashed in Hyacinthe’s mind, unfamiliar, but still familiar—and loved.

“ _Do you know me_?”

Hyacinthe shouldn’t have understood the question—the language was strange, far from anything he had heard before. He still did.

“ _Can you still tell that it’s me without having to see my face?_ _Do you still love me?_ ”

Hyacinthe’s head hurt—it felt like something was splitting it in half, trying to force itself to the surface of his mind.

“I know you.” The words fell from his tongue without any input from his mind. “I _know_ you.”

“ _Look at me_.”

“I’m afraid.” _When I loved you back then, I died for you. I don’t want to die_.

The man behind him sighed. A moment later, a pair of hands landed on his shoulders, a warm body cradling him against it. “Hyacinthe.”

_Apollo._

He closed his eyes, the floodgates open in his mind. “I won’t let you play me.”

“Then don’t. The games are over—they never end well. We have lost much power since you last walked among us. We’re no longer at the height of our power—I can no longer have everything on a whim. Will you still love someone that can no longer give you everything?”

Hyacinthe tore himself lose, spun around—and was momentarily blind to everything but that face, those eyes, that beloved, dear… He closed his eyes. “That is not why I loved you—and if you dare to insinuate it again, I’m going to hit you.”

“Then why hesitate?”

Hyacinthe laughed—with enough bitterness it hurt. “You gods—you’re blind to mortal desires and needs. Zephyr killed me because I offered you unconditional love. What’s to say that this won’t happen again? I can’t say that I don’t love you, but I refuse to be a pawn.”

“I can’t promise anything—as you well know.”

And yes, Hyacinthe did know. It all came down to whether he wanted to give this a shot—whether he dared to risk his heart and life again for someone that could never fully understand a mortal.

He opened his eyes, searched the face that had lingered in his heart even through death. Apollo simply looked back, open in a way that he had never been before. His godhood seemed diminished, though still there. The impulse to worship him was gone, however, as was the awe at the fact that this god could ever love a mortal. All that was left was the person with whom he had shared a bed, whom he had loved enough that he couldn’t resent him for indirectly causing his own death.

“I’m a fool.” Hyacinthe reached out to caress Apollo’s cheek. “Apparently I’m still your fool however.”

The smile he received in return was echoed by the sun as it pushed past the clouds above.


End file.
